Crimson Shadows
by Yuta
Summary: Z/X.The monster wants to understand but the youth will push him away. While his barriers destroy him, the group is forced to test the freindship that alliates them. And they all will see the things they tought were sure about crash down in front of crysta


Lai Wan: ... Zel: Oh no! The L-sama no Miko is here! Xell: We all know what will happen now! Yuta: You should know, Lai Wan is my angst muse. Which means I've been reading too many novels lately, which means insanity too. Xell: Well Zelly, Yuta wants some mental suffering. Start wailing. Lai Wan: Actually here you suffer as much as he does. Xell: I DO? Tell me! Lai Wan: ...smiles in a very dangerous and dark way Sit down and wait. Xell: sweatdrop Now I know how does the ppl feel when I say, "That's a secret" Yuta: I´m here too... But I feel as if something is missing... Zel: Morality? Sense? Reason? Yuta: looks like Gourry What's all that? A.S.D (Asuka's Suicidal Doll): Please, die with me... Yuta, Zel, and Xell: hide behind Lai Wan Lai Wan: Yuta, she is your muse, you should control her... Yuta: pouting But dolls scare me.... Amelia: Unjust doll! Leave poor Yuta-san out of your anti-justice plans! A.S.D: I don't have evil plans, just this rope, to hang her. And this knife, to stab her, and this gun, to shoot her, and this... Amelia: Uhm...Okay then... Filia: I refuse to work with the namigomi! Lai Wan: smiles darkly You could always work in a Filia/Giras fict. Filia: stares at the fanfict-writerYou wouldn't. Yuta: But my sister would. Bitch smile Zel: Believe me, you DON'T want to be in a Lady-Fox fic. Filia ((°-°)) I've just reconsidered my options and I think I will work here. Yuta: Great, show starting!  
  
Warnings: These are the warnings for the whole fict, not just this chapter: This happens after Lina and company met Val, but before they meet the Overworlders. Bishounen-ai. Yaoi. Angst, buckets of it. AU? (Yuta is not too good at describing terms, gomen ne ^w^;;;). OOC-ness. Bashing. Death? Dark. Spoilers, in all the seasons! I don't believe in age rating, I tend to think that if someone is interested in what he is reading, he is mature enough to read it. Anyway, it must be something like R and NC-17, who knows? Disclaimers: They are not mine. But like I'm a fanfict writer, I can do whatever I please with them. Like a famous Argentinean philosopher said: What a generous world! Comments: I like to cut lemons (real lemons, the yellow ones, the ones you use to make lemonade) like if they were oranges, put salt on them and eat them. Many people think that's weird. I've been plotting this fict for over half a year now. I should thank Cat, Oggy and Zoey, who were the ones I sent the first tries of this story. And the ones that suffered my insanity ALL the times I sent them this stuff... thanks you, girls.  
  
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Crimson shadows  
  
It started to rain very softly as Zelgadiss arrived to the sea's waterline. There was a stone he could sit on there, so the youth stopped. This was the third day of the storm and it succeeded a little. He and his friends had been forced to stay in this town, because of the storm, for an entire week, and it seemed as if they would have to wait another week or so. Lina didn't cared very much, and it seemed like if Valgaarv didn't wanted to attack while it was raining, so she was in what she liked to call a "small vacation."  
Lately he had started to feel strangely; for some reason, he had started to think more deeply in his past, in his existence. Maybe it was the Mazoku's fault. Zelgadiss was terrified of the Mazoku finding out his secret. Xellos had been staring at him openly more times that what he called normal, even more than the last year, when the demon had tried to kiss him. Zelgadiss didn't remember very well what he had said to Xellos. He remembered it had been something cruel, and that the Mazoku had blushed and slapped him. And that he had smiled at the slap and licked the blood in the corner of his lips.  
  
To tell the truth he could have let Xellos do whatever he wanted with him.  
  
It wasn't like if it was the first time someone done that.  
  
But he had found himself furious about the fact that the beautiful monster was the one trying to kiss him. Now the only thing that could affect him would be the Mazoku finding out his secret. After that, Xellos had left, and Zelgadiss had left too, but only after six months they had met again, and immediately that dragon priestess had appeared telling them that -for variety- they had to save the fucking world.  
  
Like he actually -cared- about the world!  
  
But his friends didn't want to die, so he would help them.  
  
Like he had made many other times in the last week, in the humid and gray evening, Zelgadiss walked to the sea, for a reason he didn't knew and that he almost didn't dare to guess. Inside his heart something pushed him to go on walking. The same thing that other times made him leave that place, in a race full of terror. He could feel it; his cure was here, near, very near, in Rezo's library.  
  
But he doubted. Did he really want his cure? He knew what this meant.  
  
"Cure" was just a nickname for the result of the spell. "Death" was the real name.  
  
Zelgadiss stopped in front of the waves, staring far away. A deep loneliness ate away at him slowly. It was in those moments when Zelgadiss knew he was truly alone. Alone and young, pathetically weak and childish, advancing between the dead homes of another dead and gray town. There was a endless fear in his heart, a fear that drove his friends away, that had driven his grandfather away, that was consuming him slowly, every day closer to swallowing him completely. And then there wouldn't be another place to run away from the darkness. So was death really necessary? He could just wait for the darkness.  
  
Zelgadiss remembered his childhood in Rezo's house, his house with that long stair that was a nightmare and lead to the unknown's horrors, each one worse than the other. That home where there lived whispering shadows and ghosts that played and gave him fear instead of comfort. Creatures that hurt him in the lowest way possible. He always came back there; followed by ancient laughs, where the fear and the loneliness became a cold and slow wind that snuggled in his heart.  
  
He didn't need his cure right now. First he would help his friends, then he would...  
  
All him was just a shield now. Just a physical shell of brutal and limitless wishes.  
  
It has always been like this. It will always be like this. Said the Golem. It's always people being pushed, wanting to push and pushing others, stepping over others, destroying other's dreams and hopes. People that start loving their anguish...  
  
The house was dark, with plenty of twisted rooms, in each of them there were laughter's and tongues that wove fine strands of evilness.  
  
Words whispered softly, pleas of lovers that used him, his own pleas, his own tears and his own self-destruction. Words said softly, words screamed, words shrieked that nourished the darkness, that feed from his heart. Words he hunted later like an unforgivable guilt. As if it was burned in his own, sick heart that hated yet committed sin. Zelgadiss was apprised on this dark world, because this dark world was limited and twisted, because in this darkness he could find his own sins.  
  
...His own horrifying sins that later hurt him, like a small kid that looks at the marks of old scars. And when his own pathetic dark heart was bitten by remorse, by his own apathetic dark and light remorse, there was a voice in the dark world, a long alive voice that resounded in the dark rooms, in the dark heart, in the sea. And that voice remembered that he was different, that he wasn't like other kids and never had been. That he was marked with a signal that drove everybody away, away from the dark world he belonged to. And that his grandfather, not the monster that'd tried to kill him, the one that had been good and famous, the one that had lost everything for him, would be ashamed.  
  
A childhood locked inside himself, away from the rest, always alone. Without existence. A life without a sense. He existed, but no one noticed him, so he'd choose to live away. Away in himself, away from anyone, from everything, in that house that ate all the lights, a house as dark as midnight and endless as his fear. A life of silences and empty hours, his sister sick of love, his grandfather absent and that obscure rage against the ones that were truly alive, sense the first day he understood he had no place in a world of light.  
  
Zelgadiss stared at his hands and quickly hide them behind his back, because someone said once he had assassin hands. But then he opened them in front of his eyes and stared at his palms, infinitely desolate and empty. Zelgadiss knew that even with all his selfishness and pride, he would never have possession of something, anything, nothing.  
  
That thought made him irrationally angry. It made him aware of how empty his soul was, that place where something was supposed to bright in the darkness, something strong and sharp he didn't know. Maybe he couldn't see his friends in the same way Xellos did, but the Mazoku was right when he had said he feared them. Afraid of their laughs.  
  
Surrounded by empty and cold laughs, isolating him in all those hopes, transformed far too soon in memories. Nothing stayed by his side. Everything ran from him.  
  
Zelgadiss lived, if what he had could be considerate a life, behind love, thirsty of it, with his dark soul and his empty hands. Zelgadiss, always tough about love, had never loved anyone. Had loved too many times. Only "before", but "before" was past, and past was useless. Seeking for promises of warmth, of interest, a toy, something owned, seeking for another's hopes, because he hadn't any of his own, just seeking for acceptance, denied by his condition of monstrosity, even before he was truly one.  
  
In his dark life he had never cried. Had never laughed, screamed, smiled, pouted, asked for something. He had learned how to do that.  
  
Learned how.   
  
Faked how. Purred the demon.  
  
Zelgadiss body was a hard beautiful body, a thin, almost teenager- like body, where the blood was like a dark fire line, hidden and hollow.  
  
Zelgadiss loved his slim body, fine and light, unlike his dark soul, his tender and fragile body, his already sold and wounded body, so many times broken in the darkness, precious like the few true emotions he had still.  
  
He hated his body, because like his soul was cold, cruel and indifferent, because it hurt like all those liars had hurt him before.  
  
Zelgadiss shook his head, nervous. He longed for rest. Rest of his tired body, rest of his dark soul, rest of all the lies and promises, rest from the cruel laughs and the tears. Living in the light scared him. It would be easy, living in the light, living without a past and without a future, living like his friends lived, those simple lives he hated, because they had hopes, dreams and light. That was why he always left.  
  
Zelgadiss was scared of his own eyes. Inside Zelgadiss' eyes was an excess he couldn't understand. Inside them there was too much light and too much life. Zelgadiss' pupils were a clear blue, an infinite crystal. Sometimes he stared at them in a mirror and wondered to whom did those eyes belong. Because the eyes and the rest of him was perfect.  
  
It could have been perfect, but it belonged to him, so it wasn't perfect, in him it was a monstrosity. Because he was a dark monster, with a dark soul, bred in Darkness, hating the light.  
  
It kept raining, with those light drops that reminded him of tears. Suddenly, Zelgadiss turned and walked to the house. In the path where he distractedly walked, the Mazoku was waiting for him.  
  
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Xellos stared at Zelgadiss while the youth came closer to him.  
  
Something had happened with that youth, something he couldn't understand. Something strange screamed in his thoughts. The chimera escaped from him, and that hurt him, even beyond his heart. When he thought about Zelgadiss, something ached in his chest. Always, after whatever his mission had been, after whomever he'd been with, his thoughts came back to the elusive chimera. He didn't understand him, and worst, he wasn't even near to it.  
  
He had tried to understand what this was. He knew he was more powerful that the youth. That if he wanted he could claim him and he wouldn't be able to stop him. Even kill him...  
  
But he would never be able to reach Zelgadiss, because the chimera was always away, so far away from his heart that he would never be able to reach him.  
  
Zelgadiss was a mystery he couldn't understand and he loved him because he feared him. That's why he couldn't let him know about his weakness.  
  
He would never forgive himself for his own weakness when he had tried to kiss Zelgadiss.  
  
//Xellos embraced the youth, who tried to struggle free without much energy. "Leave me." Said Zelgadiss coldly. "I'm not in the mood for your games, Mazoku." "A game would be if you tried to escape, Zelgadiss, because you can't" "Escape from what? I don't fear you" "You will not fight against me." "Don't be absurd. Against what am I supposed to fight? Against a soulless puppet? It's not worth it. Nothing is worth it. I don't know what you want from me and I'm not interested in finding out either." //  
Zelgadiss had rejected him.  
  
//He felt his eyes water up at the cruel words, but managed to keep his mask in place, managed to smile. "I wanted to explain to you what I feel, Zelgadiss." //  
  
Zelgadiss had been smiling then. Enjoying his suffering?  
  
//"Do you think I care? Do you care about me? You are pathetic! You are horrible monster behind a horrible thing like me... A thing without real feelings, like you." //  
//"I hate you, chimera!" he had said braking his mask, allowing himself to express his frustration. "You are cruel and sharp. You are senseless!" "But you already knew that. You knew I don't belong anywhere, you knew I live a shared life without sense. A life that's not completely mine and never was!" //  
He hadn't understood those words then and he didn't understand them now. In that moment he had felt like if he was breaking his soul and had hated the chimera, hated the one he loved because he enjoyed his suffering. He had hurt the chimera, and the chimera had enjoyed the pain.  
  
There was something in Zelgadiss so contradictory to his coldness and his sudden rage, things that made the Mazoku consider the chimera sometimes something much better or worse than him.  
  
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Zelgadiss stared at him. Xellos was watching him with those light violet eyes and the wind moved his hair softly. Another perfect body with a perfect face. Another shell that hid another dark monster from the shadows. In Zelgadiss' chest was still trembling a scream, lurid, and hidden. Something like sweet envy grown in his heart.  
  
In Zelgadiss soul something started to grow. It was the crimson feeling again. It got brighter and sharper. Maybe that was happiness.  
  
It was tearing him to pieces.  
  
That stupid light wasn't turning off. That strange happiness when he stared at Xellos eyes wasn't leaving. He remembered the expression the Mazoku had worn after hitting him. He had licked the blood and laughed. He had laughed and said:  
  
//"Oh Xellos, I'm so sorry." in a fake tone, the same tone he had used when he told those awful things to Silpheel, and enjoyed the look of pain he had won. //  
  
The Mazoku had also winced at the tone.  
  
//"You know my feelings are just a mask, a mask like yours, though mine is better." Zelgadiss smiled his cold, cruel smile again, and the chimera continued: "I don't need you, or Lina, or Gourry, or Amelia. I don't need anything or anyone, and less myself. I'm not here and I never was. I don't deserve to be happy, so I don't search for happiness." //  
If he was supposed to suffer a hopeless existence, why should the rest live happily? Was it so unfair that he found their suffering just? It was fair that the cruel child that suffered felt something close to glee every time those alive beings were suffering? He had suffered a lot by others.  
  
//Xellos had turned around and left. Zelgadiss saw him leave. He had pressed a hand against his eyes so he wouldn't see the monster leave, and realized his hand was shaking. //  
  
It had been in that moment when Zelgadiss started to hate Xellos.  
  
----------------------------  
  
Filia walked in the beach's direction.  
  
Why am I supposed to search for Zelgadiss? They should have sent that lovesick puppy they have for princess. And where, in Ceipheed's holy name, is that stupid namigomi?   
  
She saw against the gray sky two spots of colors, one black and the other white. Xellos and Zelgadiss cloaks.  
  
What are they doing here? Talking? I thought Zelgadiss hated Xellos. Thought the priestess.  
  
Xellos had both Zelgadiss wrist in one hand, thought Zelgadiss didn't looked like if he was trying to get free, more likely he seemed too furious to even move.  
  
She felt her heart froze when she heard what were they talking about.  
  
"Enough. I told you I didn't wanted to talk with you about this anymore. When you left I was happy, because I hate you. I will never love you, you idiot, I will never love you!" said the chimera.  
  
"Listen to me. It wasn't a lie what you heard that time Zelgadiss. I do want to understand you. Because you can understand anything, even me, and I can't. Don't run from me, Zel! "  
  
Zelgadiss winced suddenly and tried to look aside. But the Mazoku grabbed him by the chin and forced him to look into his violet eyes. Those eyes that weren't human and weren't like anything she'd seen before.  
  
"I'm not afraid of you, Metallium. Nothing is worth being feared, only the darkness and it's too late." "I don't understand! I know you care about me, I've seen it. Zel, why do you escape from me?! I can't understand you." "Shut up. You are saying stupid things, priest. No one can understand anything, because everyone is alive but me. No one cares about your games because you lie and wear a fake but effective mask. Nothing you are saying now has any sense. And to tell the truth, I don't care about your stupid fears!"  
  
Filia noticed a dull pain in her hands and realized she had broken her nail from the force with which she'd been digging them in the rock she was hiding behind.  
  
What were they talking about? Xellos had told Zelgadiss he had feelings for him? The stupid namigomi had feelings for that horrible blue thing? It was impossible. They were both men! Both monsters!  
  
It's unnatural.  
  
"I love you!" shouted the Mazoku. Filia's heart seemed to stop beating.  
  
Beat you idiot, Beat, I must see this, I must live to hate them. It's unfair. You have to beat to see this monstrosity.  
  
Zelgadiss whole body tensed.  
  
"Then you are an idiot. If you loved me you wouldn't be happy. You don't know love. Love is very different from whatever you could imagine. Love is suffering."  
  
----------------------------  
  
"You are right." Answered the Mazoku softly. At first he had thought love was pleasure. Pain was pleasure. But not this kind of pain.  
  
I didn't know love was like this.   
  
He didn't know why was he suddenly thinking of love. As if love was something good, something important for a Mazoku like him. Xellos closed his eyes again. Lately he had been opening his eyes a lot, as if he wanted to see things.  
  
Maybe love has poisoned me; maybe it is killing me. That's the reason for my suffering, that's the reason for my pain.   
  
Xellos knew he wanted the chimera, he wanted that strange creature he feared, he wanted his mind, his body, his heart and soul.  
  
(Maybe love is just pain.)  
  
Xellos didn't want to cry, didn't want to feel the cool bloody drops fall from his eyes.  
  
It's not good to love; it's not good to fear. This pain isn't sweet; fear burns us, hurts us.   
  
"Zel..." he pleaded. It wasn't fair he loved like this. He wasn't supposed to love anyone like this.  
  
Love hurts. Love never is real  
  
Xellos opened his eyes again, without realizing it.  
  
L-sama, I have never loved anyone before  
  
It was so difficult; understanding that all his life, all his dreams had been after that.  
  
(Love. )  
  
It's not fair. I'm Xellos; I'm the Beastmaster's priest. I'm not bonded. None can have me. I can't go after him! I wasn't created to follow him.   
  
Xellos tightened his grip on the youth's wrists in pure desperation.  
  
I can't run from him, but I must get away from him.   
  
But he couldn't return.  
  
If I say that to him again, I'm not going to be able to get away from him again. L-sama, I do know that I'm not human but I'm still bonded to him!   
  
Zelgadiss' cold eyes sliced his thoughts, but not a word came from the youth's mouth. "I will never come back, Zelgadiss."  
  
Zelgadiss eyes widened and looked truly surprised for the first time in the two years he had known the youth. "I will leave and never come back."  
  
----------------------------  
  
Xellos took a step backwards, releasing the youth's wrists. Zelgadiss' hands found only emptiness, and a small moan of fear escapes is lips.  
  
He... This isn't...   
  
Confused eyes stared blankly at his empty hands and suddenly let them fall at his sides. He kept staring at the floor.  
  
(Loneliness, like it always was. Emptiness, like it always will be. ) Said the third voice. That voice he hated, because it was always right, because it was his, and not completely he. Maybe it was Rezo's rage.  
  
Zelgadiss stared without focusing at something that wasn't there. Inside him something red, hot and sharp was mixing with the darkness, something lurid that scared him, that scared him almost as much as the darkness itself. It scared him almost as much as Xellos.  
  
Xellos closed his eyes again in his usual smile and got closer to Zelgadiss. The youth didn't moved, but his eyes darted towards him again and stared at him fixedly.  
  
"Not yet." Said the Mazoku "Now I know what I will do. I'll search for your heart and soon I'll find it." "It's useless." Answered the chimera. "My heart is dead. It died years ago. Find it, if you can, but it will be useless. It's a dead, useless and stupid thing. That would not change things between us, Xellos."  
  
Xellos hid his head in the chimera's neck. Zelgadiss caressed the soft hair hesitantly, thinking when he had been the last time someone had held him in that way.  
  
I don't like this monster. I don't like his soft hair, or his heat, or his eyes, or his nearness. Thought the chimera. And smiled with gritted teeth.  
  
(Then why, oh why are you so scared of loosing him, and of being with him? )  
  
Broken. We've been broken. Everything is breaking apart. It's a lie that the night ends and the sun rises. If we break our life, everything is broken then.   
  
Now try to have hopes hurts, like dreams, useless. Graywords, we are doomed. Drown in desperation.   
  
Zelgadiss pushed him violently and stared at the sea, the sea was broken like his dark soul and strangely lost, he turned around and ran away.  
  
(Because desperation is easy. Don't expect anything, nothing. Don't own a thing, don't own even your own life. Don't even own your own dreams and hopes. )  
  
It is a stupid world, strange feelings, the dismissal, everyone hiding on themselves, wanting one thing and always receiving another thing, wanting to give something and always giving another thing.   
  
(Pathetic world. )  
  
The world was a disaster and he was alone.  
  
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Amelia was pressing her body against the rough wood of the tree where she was hidden and closed her eyes at the sudden tears that fall down her cheeks.  
  
Zelgadiss ran in the inn's direction without seeing her. Filia ran behind him as fast as she could. She didn't notice her presence either. Xellos eyes fixed in hers for a moment. He cleaned his tears and then he turned his back to her.  
  
Amelia left.  
  
*******************  
  
Thanks soooooooooooooooooo much to Amy, my beta-writer! T-T She's cool, she's grate, she corrects my mistakes! And thinks that my stories are good, for a change.  
  
Hummm. This is a product of an idea I've discussed with Lilith-chan. Remember I made a pool about "Why is Zel angst ridden" and one of the options said: Zelgadiss is not alive, he is just an experiment Rezo did with his dead grandson, and lives to prove otherwise? Yeah, that one. (No officer, I didn't smoked anything before writing this! ^w^;;) Well, that was where the idea surged from. Nice, right? It would be an interesting past for Zelly... Pretty paranoid too... Who could tell, I liked the title this time! ...About the POV's... Well, I've decided I don't hate Amelia as much as I hate Filia.... Besides she is a bitch! Look at her! I hate so much her superior attitude and her sudden "martyr attack"...I would kill her without think it twice, but hey, that's my opinion. This is based in the Papa Roach video "She loves me not" too, now that I come to think about it. Remember it is about a dark version of a Park? Well, this is a Dark version of the Slayers group, and their way to see their relationship with the chimera. I think that to write Zel is easier because he has this tendency to be hysteric, paranoid and capricious... Well, as I was saying this is a Dark Slayers world, from different POV's, the ones for the rest start in the next chapter, and depress a lot. Why in a beach? I dunno, I liked it. Why the repetition of scenarios? It is an Evangelion trick, or at least that's what the other me has been telling me. 


End file.
